Oil Companies Complain About Proposed Oil Tax Changes (Awwwww)

[The Straight Story]

Oil Companies Complain About Proposed Oil Tax Changes

Oil companies in Alaska are upset over recent changes to the Governor Murkowski's net-profits oil tax bill.

The House Resources Committee has amended the bill to include a point-3 percent for every dollar increase per barrel once West Texas Intermediate Oil reaches 50 dollars per barrel. That means after Alaska oil hits about 48 dollars per barrel, the tax would increase slightly as the price continues to rise.

But oil companies executives told the Committee these changes will hurt production on the slope. They say increased taxes will cause a decrease in investment, and that will make North Slope production decline, worse than it already is.

....

Committee Co-Chair, Rep. Jay Ramras (R - Fairbanks), says this change is a bonus, "So that the state of Alaska can enjoy and share a windfall profits tax with the oil companies when oil prices start to go out of the stratosphere and the state and the producers start to enjoy high oil prices."

....

The committee also reduced the Governor's transition period, eliminating a 1-billion dollar tax break for the oil companies.

http://www.aksuperstation.com/news/local/2478546.html

[Zinfandel]

1. Is there such a thing as a democrat holding office in Alaska? Or has

the electronic voting machines there made sure there are none or very few democrats...like in Georgia, Florida & Ohio?

[Blue_In_AK]

3. Yes, we have some great Democrats here

Anchorage's mayor is a young Democrat, Mark Begich, the son of U.S. Rep. Nick Begich who was killed with Hale Boggs in a mysterious plane crash in the '70s. My state representative (who is running for governor this year) and senator are also Democrats. Actually, the Democrats and Republicans in the legislature are working together on this oil tax thing and opposing Gov. Murkowski, who is trying to make things easy for the oil companies. He is the second least popular governor in the country, so the Democrats could have a shot at taking back the governorship this year.

But as for the oil taxes, Big Oil has been getting very rich off of Alaska. It's only fair that when their profits increase they should pay more taxes to the state.

Ed. - A side benefit - maybe it will discourage them from drilling in ANWR if they think it's going to cost too much.

[Zinfandel]

4. But what about Alaska's electronic voting machines, will they come into

play in favor (as always 100%) for the republicans, as I've read recently about huge discrpencies...

[Blue_In_AK]

7. Yes, the 2004 election results were somewhat mysterious here

as very popular Democrat Tony Knowles (former two-term Anchorage mayor and two-term governor) seemed to be leading Lisa Murkowski right up until the end (although narrowly), but she managed to pull it off in the end. The state Democratic party discovered that certain statistics in the precinct results didn't seem to make sense and have been trying to get the raw data from the state division of elections for several months now. Diebold finally said they could look at it, but now the stumbling block seems to be the division of elections. If there is some legitimate explanation for the discrepancies, then why is the Division of Elections being so cagey about this? The whole matter will probably end up in a lawsuit somewhere down the line. Hopefully, things will be resolved by November.

In any event, whether a Democrat or Republican wins the governorship, we'll no doubt be better off with Frank the Bank gone. I really don't have any serious problems with any of the candidates. I like both Democrats who will be in the primary. The other three candidates are an Independent, Andy Halcro (formerly a Republican, but basically a pretty good guy, I think); former Wasilla mayor Sarah Palin, that rare commodity, a Republican with ethics; and John Binkley, who I don't know much about, although I do see from his biography that he worked on the 2004 Bush campaign. Everything else in his biography seems pretty innocuous though, so maybe he was just going along to get along. He's from Fairbanks, so I'm not real familiar with him.

[The Straight Story]

6. Thanks for that info

Will be interesting to watch this and see what happens. I can see bush taking a trip to Alaska soon...

[Trajan]

2. Hey Oil Corps .. You dont LIKE it ? ...

Go STEAL the people's resources in ANOTHER state ....

[kurth]

5. Oil company executives warn higher tax will be passed on to consumers

Betcha they'll use that excuse soon.